Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is the Retirement Solution Podcast with financial advisor John Hicks,
founder of Jayhagen Capital.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
When the market's down, we have talked about the notion
of I mean the you know, the rule of market
investments is buy low, sell high. Obviously, we saw dips
in the first part of the year, John, so there
was conversation about buying the dip.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
But that's not what we're talking about here right now.
Speaker 4 (00:23):
No, No, I mean, are we talking about buying the dip?
Speaker 2 (00:26):
No, we want to talk about a correlation with a
tax advantage.
Speaker 4 (00:30):
All right, So yeah, I mean you can turn lemons
in the lemonade. You can take those dips and then
like guacamole and then just put some chips in there too.
You go, that's what we're going to talk about.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Really, Okay, we're gonna we're gonna make some strides. You're
I was gonna say, got.
Speaker 4 (00:44):
Latin music in my head. I've had it.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
You're getting ready to go on vacation? Is what on here?
Speaker 4 (00:50):
If that's what you want to call it? Vacation?
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Yea, John and his family are headed off to a
trip in the Islands next week, and to them, I say, kudos,
But first, are you got work to do your paychecks,
you can afford that vacation.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
Yeah, that still may not happen.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Let's talk about market circumstance and opportunities, because, as we
were saying, when stocks go down, some investors will push
money into the market.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
It's doing the thing called buying the dip.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
But there was this article on MarketWatch dot com talking
about how doing a roth conversion when the market down
is also like quote unquote buying the dips.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
So please explain how this works.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Why are these two similar, and perhaps are there opportunities
that we need to be looking at in the space
because of dips we saw this year, Is that even
an option now that this stock market is rebounded, Well.
Speaker 4 (01:41):
Well, we'll see, right, So okay, just it really is
going to kind of depend on what kind of dips
we are going to see and or you know, are
we still is there still the possibiole of having a
recession out there? We haven't. You know, no one has
really completely taken that off the table, depending how tariffs
end up and what happens you know, internationally and geopolitically. Right, So,
one of the things to understand is, and I read
this article and I think it got about seventy percent, right,
(02:02):
you got about thirty percent. Maybe not exactly right. It
talked about when there's a dip that, of course a
lot of people like to buy. It's like, oh, well
the stock I wanted is like nine percent off, let
me go ahead and jump in there. Some people may
have seen that with Tesla, you know, over at the
beginning of the year, and if you look at that,
Tesla's up quite a bit since then, and of course
lost it again after this whole you know, infighting between
(02:22):
Musk and Trump. Interestingly, though, when you're thinking about doing
a wroth conversion in buying the dip, here's my fear
a lot of people. It depends on what asset you're relocating, right,
because think about this. If you're down ten percent in
your Tesla stock, I mean just use this as an example,
ten percent in your Tesla stock, you go ahead and
(02:45):
you take that money and you convert it to your wroth.
Now you're down ten percent in your stock. Plus you're
down whatever your marginal and state tax rate is. Oh,
that's insult to injury. So this is where if you're
going to buy the dip into a wroth conversion, can
be unbelievably smart. But you have to use risk arbitrage.
(03:05):
All right, let's talk about that for a minute. This
is a big deal. Hedge funds do this all the
time when they're doing tax loss harvesting or they're trying
to harvest tax gains. They do it all the time
with their different properties and their different real estate and
their different assets. Private equity does this all the time.
But when you think about it, think about this. If
you actually wanted to buy the dip and do a
Wroth conversion, you want to actually sell the asset that
(03:28):
didn't lose that ten percent in this example, you don't
want You want to take a safer asset, usually cash
in that account, or one of your treasuries or your
money market account, or one of your other safer assets
that hasn't sold. This is an opportunity. I see a
lot of times for people that own some annuities and
they're like, you know, this annuity isn't bad. It hasn't
(03:49):
been that great either. Now that the market's taken a dip,
why do I pull out a free amount from this annuity?
Convert that free amount because you had no losses on that,
and then you add a little bit of risk in
the wroth. Now why would you do this? Well, think
about it, Heather. If you get the opportunity to not
only have a ten percent loss, all you're doing is
(04:10):
you're taking cash that has no loss and now you're
going to buy an asset that has a ten or
fifteen percent hit on it. When it comes back hopefully
to even or better, you are automatically taking advantage of
that tax gain from that situation. You're using what they
call risk arbitrage. You're taking two different amounts of risk,
and you're trying to make money on the difference. That
(04:32):
can be genius. As a matter of fact, during the
COVID crisis and scare that everyone had, there were many, many,
many clients we did this with on some stocks like
Churchill downs. Back in the day, it was down like
sixty or seventy percent. Since then it's up like one
hundred and ninety percent. So imagine, don't sell that stock
that you like, that Microsoft, or that Apple or that
(04:53):
Netflix or whatever it is, whatever that company is. Think
about adding more to that position by selling an asset
that isn't down or down at all, or use cash.
By doing that, you get the opportunity to have tremendously
better gains in the long run. Now, to balance things
out over time, then you can decide if you want
to to replace that other stock in that traditional account.
(05:15):
In this example, for talking about a rock conversion, it
typically means you're converting cash from that traditional IRA. You
can consider rebalancing that, rebalancing that later. Why would you
do that, because there is no tax aspect inside of
the actual traditional iray itself. There is no tax to
buy or sell anything within it. So because of that,
then you can rebalance at the next quarter, the next
(05:36):
year whenever your advisor says so, because that would make
even more prudence. That way, you are not double doubling
in our example that Tesla stock, You're just buying it
in the right bucket. That's called asset location, right, It's
not the allocation. We're just putting it in a different
location to take advantage of the opportunities.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
Okay, all right, so asset look at risk, carbtrage at location.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
Also, you were.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Talking about some of the ways that we can do
these things, John, It still all sounds very complicated as.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
And people mess it up all the time too, right,
So they'll sell the wrong stock in the wrong place,
or put it in the wrong spot, and then they
end up having a bigger tax problem down the road
because they didn't look into Medicare extra cost or in it,
which is the net investment income tax, or they're not
looking at their marginal brackets and they end up what
they call bracket bumping, or they end up going, let's say,
from the twenty two percent bracket to the twenty four,
(06:27):
from the twenty four into the thirty two. It happens
all the time where people have good ideas, but their
execution isn't great, right, and so this is kind of
one of those things, especially when you're going to try
to get a little bit deeper. Right, So when you're
talking about tax code, you're talking about using arbitrage, you're
talking about using different asset structures and location. A lot
of times you're using asset shifting. Whenever you're doing those things,
(06:47):
is probably wise to either seek out a CPA or
a tax attorney or find a skilled to do share
that actually focuses on the tax bent. And by focus
on the tax I'm not talking about old all your
money in a deferd annuity, la la la la la.
That's horrible. What you want them to do is understand
where does the tax code benefit you and where's your max?
(07:09):
Because if you play in that range, our team proves
it every day. The average beyer who saved about seven
hundred grand can put an extra one hundred and fifty
to two hundred grand in their pocket of the course
of retirement just by understanding those simple things but executing
it correctly. Knowing about it but not executing it correctly
could cost you more money, not even save you a
(07:30):
single dime. So the question is is that when you're
thinking about hmm, if I have an advisor wherever they
are Edward Jones, Merrill Lynch, the bank broker, or whoever
it is, Fidelity, Schwap, wherever it is, the question is
are you getting the value for what you're paying them?
Because most of those guys don't work for free, and
so the question is are you getting the value. One
of the things that I want everyone to think about
is any retirement planner, anyone out there is trying to
(07:52):
guide you to get to retirement and then be able
to stay retired your whole life, what did they focus on?
Because in our office, it's simply five things. Protect what
you got, create an income stream, make it tax efficient,
make sure that it goes to the people you want
when you're gone, like a surviving spouse or kids or grandkids.
And make sure that you've got something to pay for
health care that doesn't often include expensive health care long
(08:15):
term care costs. Right, So if you get those five
things down, that's what you want, that's what allows us
to sleep at night. That, to me is the biggest
thing we can understand out of all these these these
questions about taxation or the markets. How do you put
it all together right? Anyone can do something good in
a silo, but how does it mesh right with everything
out That's typically where I find most people need, probably
(08:37):
someone skilled at that point in time.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
The idea of good ideas bad execution is such a
real thing for so many investors, particularly well actually tragically
with DIY investors. You would kind of expect it, But
a lot of people that work with advisors have gotten
bad advice.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
Because we've spoken about before.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Yes, okay, by the dip, the opportunity of rock converse,
but roth conversions don't necessarily work for anybody in any
kind of market, work for everybody in any kind of markets.
Speaker 4 (09:05):
Mean, you have to do the math. Right. There's a
lot of people that they're just their gung ho, John,
I want to do Roth conversions. They come in our
staff Fren's analysis, and we show them black and white.
If you do Roth conversions, there's a chance you're going
to pay more taxes than if we just exploit the
system the way it's built for you. And they're like,
who whoall? What do you mean exploit the system? I'm like,
it's not complicated. Yeah, Wroth conversions may cost you more
(09:27):
money because of your income, your income needs, where your
assets are located, and the type of assets you have.
It may actually be more expensive for you while you're
alive or for your heirs to inherit than if you
just don't do Roth conversions. And I've I mean, I've
had people look at me like I've got seven heads.
They're like, John, I've heard you on the radio for
fifteen years. You've always talked about getting money in tax free.
(09:49):
Now what I've talked about is is it wise to
get money in tax free based on your economic situation,
based on your tax code and your your needs. Right,
Because some people you have saved way too much money
you're always going to have a tax issue. So is
there a smarter way to get around the tax code,
If not for you while you're alive, then for your
heirs or your surviving spouse when you're gone. Often there is,
(10:13):
but that requires advanced concepts. Right, We're going to look
more at trust designs. We got to look at more
some forms of life insurance, are they correct? That's the
way the Rockefellers and the Vanderbilts and the Kennedys if
for years given their money to the next generations through
the form of insurance. But we're always told, oh, that's bad. Well,
if the richest billionaires on the planet have done that
to get their money to their people, I have a
(10:34):
hard time thinking it's all terrible. But it's not about
one size fits all. It's about what is the right
fit for that individual. Sometimes it's a roth conversion, sometimes
it's buying the dip, but probably it's getting the right
advice from someone who understands all those silos and put
them together so that you can simply understand if you're
doing it, why, if you're not, why and how are
(10:55):
we going to with more money in your pocket?
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Right?
Speaker 4 (10:57):
Right?
Speaker 3 (10:57):
Right?
Speaker 2 (10:58):
How's it going to benefit your bottom line. This is
with John and his team are working to find out
with n for you at Jahagen Capital. Retirement solutionshow dot
com is our website and where to start the conversation
understanding options and opportunities like buying the dip roth conversions.
Could a Roth conversion end up costing you rather than
benefiting you? This is the point of running the numbers,
(11:19):
doing the math. John and his team.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
Ready to do that for you as well.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
We also have links posted in the show notes so
you can just click there or again find us anytime
Retirement Solutions Show dot com.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Thanks for listening to The Retirement Solution Podcast with John Hicks.
Begin the conversation about your savings plan with John and
the team at Jahagen Capital by visiting Retirement Solution Radio
dot com. Be sure to listen to John's radio show,
The Retirement Solution Saturdays at eight am and Sundays at
nine am on NewsRadio eight forty Whas.
Speaker 5 (11:49):
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To find out if Jay Gagan Capital Incorporated is licensed
in your state, please call five zero two six.
Speaker 4 (11:56):
Nine fifty six thirty five.
Speaker 5 (11:57):
If Jahegan Capital, Incorporated, is not affiliated with me more
endorsed by the Social Security Administration or any other government agency,
and does not provide legal or tax advice. By contact accounts,
you may be provided with information about insurance and annuity
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Speaker 4 (12:11):
Bankful War